






;^ 



THE TEST. 



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THE WAY TO DIStlNGTJlSH TINSEL FROM GOLD/ 



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PEARL FROM POTTERY 



BEING A CRITICAL NOTICE OF 






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POEMS BY AMELIA/^ 



BY A LADY. 






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L U I S V I L L E, K Y : 

PRINTED ON THE MORNING COURIER OFFICE POWER PRBr^? 

1845. 



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I 



1 



THE TEST. 



THE WAY TO DISTINGUISH TINSEL FROM GOLD, 



And 



I>EARL FROM POTTERY; 



BEING A CRITICAL NOTICE OF 



"POEMS BY AMELIA/^ 



BY A LADY. 



LOUISVILLE, KYt 

MdlNTED AT THE OFFICE OF THE MORNING COtl&IEH. 

1845. 



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^'=:^'^ 



POEMS. BY AMELIA. 



BOSTON: A. TOMPKINS, CORNHILL. 1845— p.p. 269. 



It is pleasant, at any time, to receive a new volume of poetry, fresh 
from the hands of its author, and publisher ; it is doubly pleasant, if 
the author be an American; and it is even delightful, if the work be 
the production of a lady. Such a volume, placed before us, by some 
kind friend, gives a promise of rare and racy things in store for us — a 
feast of dainties, delicately, and tastefully prepared, at which the in- 
tellectual appetite may banquet, without fear of present satiety, or 
future disiaste. And, if the mental treat come to us heralded by the 
praises of critics, of amiple ability to analyze, and of judgment and taste 
to compare and discriminate, we aie predisposed to receive it with 
courtesy and kindness, to examine it favorably, and to enjoy, to the 
utmost, all the treasures of nature, feeling, and fancy, with which the 
genius of its author may have enriched and adorned it. 

Attended by all these prepossessing circumstances, there came to us 
lately, an annual-like volume, entitled — " Poems, by Amelia." It is 
confessedly a heautiful volume of poems, and, looking on its gorgeous 
cover of scarlet and gold, the smooth surface, fine texture, and glossy 
lustre of its paper, and its fair and splendid type, it is difficult to doubt, 
that it is also a volume of heautiful poems. The contents of the 
work, a very few pieces excepted, were wholly unknown to us; and 
we opened it with a sincere desire to derive from it, all the pleasure and 
profit, it might be calculated to afford. But, to our regret, we too soon 
became apprehensive, that the amount of these would be insufficient to 
fill up the measure of our hopes and expectations. 

On examining the frontispiece and motto, both taken from the first 
poem in the volume, it is impossible not to perceive, that the latter is 
injudiciously selected, and that the former is conceived in bad taste, 
and executed with but little skill. 



4 POEMS— BY AMELIA. 

The female figure, (intended to represent the poetess herself,) is, in 
its whole air, attitude and expression, of a character strikingly dull, 
and decidedly "mawkish." The lady stands in a boudoir, at a case- 
ment, when she should be in the open air, by the sea-shore; her hands 
dangle listlessly down from the wrists, and, together with her inanimate 
features, and "lackadaisical" posture, give to her an expression ihe 
very reverse of intellectual, and perfectly emotionless. There is no 
appearance, in her face or figure, of either pleasure, admiration, or 
devotion. She does not even look at the "rainbow:" her eyes are 
fixed on an opposite toilet-glass, in which her interesting person, (to 
borrow one of her own favorite expressions,) is "mirrored." 

The casement, by which she stands, would certainly afford her any 
extent of prospect she might wish to command ; for, allowing even for 
perspective, it is somewhat wider than the " rainbow," which she- tells 
us, " stretched to the uttermost ends of the earth." 

These faults, however, belong to the designer, and engraver ; but 
certainly, if the picture be intended to embody any thing naturally 
gUggested by the poem, entitled " The Rainbow," it is, in almost every 
particular, a complete and ridiculous failure. But these things are 
comparatively trivial, and must therefore occupy no more of our time. 

After a careful perusal of the entire volume, and repeated re-exami- 
nations of all the pieces in any measure worthy of particular notice, the 
candid and discriminating reader is obliged to confess, that the delica- 
cies, promised in the repast, are but too much — 

" Like dead sea fruits, that tempt the eye, 

But turn to ashes on the lips." 

» 

On almost every page of this volume, there is, clearly apparent, a 
perpetual effort to shine, or rather to glitter, and the glare of mere tinsel 
is blindly mistaken for the sparkling of gems. The sickly radiance, 
thus made to gild every object, and to color every thought, is as repug- 
nant to good taste, as it is contrary to the truthfulness of nature, and 
the fervour of deep feeling. 

The poetess tells us that her " soul burns with wild poetic fire ;" and 
when she is possessed with the peculiar " fine phrenzy," every thing, 
she says, does, or fancies, is transcendental. Her " dew-drops" are 
"wept from stars" — her leaves murmur to her in such "spirit-tones," 
that she, in order to be no less devout and spiritual, " answers with a 



POEMS— BY AMELIA. 5 

prayer." Her sea-shores are among the most •• verdant," "flowery," 
and " perfumed" spots of earth, irrigated with " leaping rills," and dot- 
ted with " breezy hills," whose "mossy sides" "slope to the seas;" 
her ocean-waves, instead of crests of foam, have " dimpled faces," and, 

<'Like little children, wild with glee, 
They linked their dimpled k»nds.^' 

Her little singing- birds, (that never fly aloft, and whose chosen 

homes are in shrubbery and under-brush, or, at farthest, in groves, and 

low forest trees,) freed from their cages, ascend at once, (in her infated 

lays,) to '- the upper heaven," *-where the morning stars ones sang 

together,'" and thence plunge dauntlessly into the sun. For she says 

to one of those weak- winged warblers, just released from its pi'ison- 

house — 

•' For thou wilt wander to yon upper heaven, 
And bathe thy plumage in the sunbeams^ home.^* 

Now, if the home of the sunbeams be not in the sun himself, we 
cannot even fancy the whereabout of their dwelling-place. This feat, 
just described, would seem to be sufficiently daring and arduous to 
satisfy most birds, whether little or big; but this one, so feelingly apos- 
trophized by the poetess, unscathed by his fiery hath, just alluded to, 
soars uyward again, until he is very naturally, " lost to human sight." 
Indeed, the wonder is, that any mere human optics di<J not lose sight of 
him long before ; and we are persuaded that no " orbs" other than those 
of the poetess, could have retained a glimpse of him, even at half the 
distance. We have never heard of but one similar instance of long- 
sightedness, and clear vision ; and that is related in the ballad of "Sally 
Brown," who, when her " beau Ben" is carried off by a press-gang, 
thus declares her determination — 

*' But I will to the water's side. 
And see hira out of sight. 

When the poetess is in this rapt condition, every thing '' floats'' with 
her — the "clouds," the "angels," the "rainbow," the "moon and 
stars," and,' at last, she even floats herself; for, she says — 

Star on star, all soft and calm. 

Floats vp yon arch serenely blue, 
And lost to earth, and steeped in balm, 

My spirit floats in ether too.''' 



6 POEMS— BY AMELIA. 

And this may account for the whole Jioating panorama. For, as 
Shakespeare says — " He that is giddy, thinks the world turns rownd.'* 

Another very palpable defect is the continual repetition of certain 
pretty words and phrases, evidently selected on account of their sup- 
posed poetical sound; and because they have been employed, tin,e 

immemorial, by poets, great and small by the former, to clothe 

natural, striking, and poetical thoughts; in which case, their aptitude 
and power are both seen and felt. But the latter, mistaking the dra- 
pery, in which it is clad, for the spirit of poetry itself, employ them to 
cover their own poverty of conception, and to disguise and give cur- 
rency to trite thoughts, and inapt similies. Our authoress having made 
an abundant collection of these dainty, tinkling, and fire-fly expres- 
sions, uses them with a liberality certainly unsurpassed by any of her 
predecessors. She has the " seas" always at hand, " laughing or dim- 
pled" — " breezy hills" — "leaping," or '-'singing rills" — the "hush'* 

of the "wave," the "twilight',' and the "tomb" "wings," of 

"angels," "doves," and "rainbows" — "stars," "weeping dew-drops," 
or " floating" — " roses" " fainting" or " slumbering" — " wet lips" — 
" tresses" — " tears" — "murmurs" — " tremblings" — "raptures" — and 
" bliss." Tn truth, we can scarcely read a stanza, without encoun- 
taring a sigh, or look upon a page, without being invited to sympath ize 
with a succession of "thrills." 

In her application of these brilliant materials, the poetess is much 
more profuse and tautological, than discreet and judicious. Thrown 
into slightly different forms, those sparkling fragments, constitute, in 
fact, nearly the whole of her available means ; and, being applied to 
every thing, with almost equal inaptitude, they come at last to mean 
nothing — reminding us forcibly of a toy, with which we have at times 
amused ourselves, for half an hour, in childhood — a kaleidoscope, into 
which a score of differently colored pieces of glass are promiscuously 
thrown, (no matter what may be their size, shape, or quality.) and 
which applied to the eye and moved slowly, gives at each turn a slightly 
different figure, composed of precisely the same materials, always pretty 
and glittering, but wearisome even to a child ; merely because it nei- 
ther suggests ideas to the mind, nor furnishes any thing that the memory 
can retain even for a moment. 

There is yet another clearly perceptible fault of the authoress, per- 
vading her e7itire work. It Is, that, whatever be the subject of her verse, 



POEMS— BY AMELIA. 7 

o? to whomsoever addressed, she sings, at least, fully as much of herself, 
as of any thing else ; and there is too evident a degree of exaggerated 
sensibility in all she professes to feel in her own person, or attributes 
to others. Her remembrances, and friendships, loves and joys, are so 
excessive, as to raise her far above the sympathies, and above even the 
comprehension of ordinary mortals. Her friends surpass in loveliness 
every conceivable degree of human perfection^, and are *'pure" and 
praiseworthy, beyond all hope of comparison, or conception, even by 
herself. In her own words, (which to us, however, are wholly without 
meaning,) the dreams of one of those etherial beings, were ''pure as a 
feeling unborn.'' Nevertheless, she has herself passed with these sub- 
limated creatures- — 

" such hours of bliss, 

As none but kindred hearts can know. — " 

thus assuming to herself a degree of perfection corresponding to all the 
exquisiteness of theirs. 

In illustration of our remarks, on this all-pervading spirit of inflated 
egotism, we refer our readers to almost every line in which she .speaks 
in the first person ; while we present to them a few brief extracts, too 
clear and appropriate to our purpose to be either misunderstood or ca- 
villed at. 

In her address to " the stars," she says — 

*' Ye startle thoughts within this heart of mine, 
That I must breathe, or it will break in twain;'* 

and yet, all the heart-breaking thoughts, ** breathed" in the three next 
stanzas, are of herself exclusively, detailing what she used to do in 
" wildest glee," when she was a little child; such aa lying on the top 
of one of her peculiar " breezy hills," on the sea shore, under trees, 
whose leaves dropt dew upon her, gazing at the stjyrs. We also hear 
perpetually of her " tender heart" — her " mild spirit" — her " sweet, 
wild thoughts"' — her ''heart formed for softness and for tears;" and 
again of her personal perfections, when she refers to her " forehead 
starred with beauty" — her " young head" — her *' tresses" — her ** little 
hand" — her " dark brown ringlets" — and her " warm lip." In one 
place she speaks of a " fleecy cloud" that (floated, of course,) •* be- 
twcen me (herself) and the skies'* — an expression productive, in the 



8 POEMS— BY AMELIA. 

mind of the reader, of a strong suspicion, that she did not remcmbei* 
any other object on earth for the cloud to float over> but herself^ But 
we should swell our pagea too inordinately, were we to recite but a tithe 
of the instances of this self-exaltation. 

When attempting to be sweetly eimplej the poetess's effort, palpable 
to the dullest comprehension, renders the verses she indites so affectedly 
insipid, that tliey become of the order termed, by critics, the ♦♦ Rosa- 
Matilda/' And with that grade of common-place must a large number 
of these poems be unavoidably classed. Nor is her exquisite sensi- 
bility much less exceptionable, on account of its obvious and labored 
exaggeration. 

In consequence of her unceasing struggle to appear super-eminent, 
her professions of friendship and affection lose all tiie pure and chast- 
ened feelings of woman, and would be thought quite warm enough, 
both in matter and manner, did they issue from the lips or the pen, of 
the most enraptured inamorato. And in these inordinate efforts, rising 
in her mood to the mock sublime, she suddenly sinks again, from her 
inflated height, into the mirth-stirring bathos— thus making the " single 
step from the sublime to the ridiculous," as short as any author we re. 
member, hardly excepting even the rhymster, who, from a wayward 
caracole of his Pegasus, said or sung, in his headlong tumble, the foL 
lowing couplet, of undying renown — 

" And thou, Dalhousie, Mighty God of War, 
Lieutenant Colonel to the Earl of Marl I" 

For a striking instance of this attempt at rising, but success only in 
falling) we may refer our readers to the *• lines on a miniature," which 
seem to have been written expressly to illustrate our remarks on this 
subject. 

In common with most other writers of poetry, our authoress has a 
strong penchant for similies; and she has contrived to supply her read* 
ers with them in marvellous abundance, with the least possible variety; 
a few pet objects having furnished her with comparisons for every thing 
she wished to illustrate. In this, there would be at least ingenuity, and 
convenience, were there a single point of genuine analogy, between the 
objects or feelings reciprocally compared* But the very contrary is 
Strikingly true, in a majority of instances, even where her meaning is 
\\i\\y comprehensible ; and there are not n few cases, in which the 



POEMS— BY AMELIA. 9 

simile is so wild and extravagant, as to lose all definite meaning, in its 
immeasurable bombast. What, for example, is the meaning of the 
following preposterous congregation of words, taken from " The Young 
Lovers" — 

"She," (the lady-lover,) " half reclined upon abed of flowers, 

And o'er her shoulder, rainbow-like there bended, 

A youth whose sighs with her warm breathings blended." 

How this sighing swain resembled a rainbow, we are unable to per* 
ceive, unless he " bended" so far over the shoulder of the half-reclining 
damsel, as to assume the form of an arch or half circle ; in which case, 
he must have stood upon his head, as well as upon his feet, and thus 
have placed himself in a very peculiar, awkward, and uncomfortable 
position, to say the least of it. And yet, if this undignified curvature 
were not the point of analogy, we can find no other between the rain- 
bow, and the beau of the lady. But the comparison was considered a 
pretty metaphor ; and that, with the poetess, covered all its faults. 

One of her etherial friends has her locks compared to "pellucid 
gold." Now the aptitude of this simile, bizarre and enigmatical as it 
is, we are unable to controvert, from the fact, that we have never seen 
any gold of a '' pellucid,^' i. e. of a transparent character — all of that 
metal which we have observed, having been unmistakably opaque. 

There, are, also, in many of the poems, faults in rhythm, inelegant 
abbreviations, and grammatical inaccuracies. In consequence of the 
former, we are often obliged to lay the accent on the wrong word, or 
syllable, and sometimes even to mispronounce a word, in order to read 
the lines in the metre, in which the poetess intended to express them ; 
for instance, in the following lines — 

" The bright rose, when faded. 

Flings forth o'er its tomb, 
Its fragrant leaves laded 

With silent perfume;" — \ 

the word " perfume" must have the accent improperly laid on the last 
syllable, instead of the first, else in reading them, the rhythm and 
rhyme are marred. 

Although it is allowable, in versification, occasionally to abbreviate 
words, yet it is true, and worthy of observation, that good writers do so 
as seldom as possible ; aud only, when it can be done gracefully, ana 



It) POEMS— BY AMELIA. 

without disturbing the rythm. Our authoress, on the contrary, evi- 
dently deeming it a poetical prettyisai, to use these ciipt words^ appears 
to have made it a study to introduce them, and often does so very awk- 
wardly, and sometimes even unnecessarily and prejudicially, as res- 
pects the metre in which she is writing. " I'd," " 'twould," " 'twill,' 
** 'twere," " 'twas," " flings't," " 'neath," &c., are not, in themselves?, 
either beautiful, or essential to poetry. It would have been much better 
therefore, had the authoress been more sparing in the use of them. 

Of her errors in grammar, we shall point out a single Instance ; 
though others might be cited. In her " Sleeping Maiden," she says- 
Yes, Very bright and very sweet, 
Tliose dreamings all must be ; 
Or else they would not flit around 
A creature fair as ^Aee." 

But, to generalize no longer, we shall cease to speak of the faults 
of the poems en masse, and, turning to the work itself, specify the 
principal sources, whence our objections to it have arisen, in order that 
readei-s may judge for themselves, how far those objections are sustained 
by the references we shall make to individual poems, and by extracting 
from them passages, which we deem exceptionable in composition or 
matter — or in both united. 

In the execution of this design, we shall notice first, as being most 
numerous, those we have spoken of as belonging to the Rosa-Matilda 
school. And, in doing so, we shall content ourselves with a very 
limited series of observations on a few of them, and with such short 
extracts from them, as may serve to illustrate those observations, and 
show them to be just. 

We would here observe, not in the spirit of levity, but of truth, that 
a number of these poems are written in that ordinary style, so severely 
lidiculed by Dr. Johnson, when he offered to talk such poetry, for any 
length of time, and accordingly began — 

" And now, I pray thee, Renny dear. 

That thou wilt give to me, 
With cream and sugar softened well. 

Another dish of tea. 
And much expertness as thou hast, 

I'll bet thee half a crown, 
Thou canst not pour it out as fast, 

As I can gulp it down". 



POEMS— BY AMELIA. 11 

The first of those common-place effusions, we shall notice, is entitled 
*' Melodia," and commences thus — 

" I met once in my girlish hours, 
A creature soft and warmy &,c. 

This poem consists of seven stanzas, of ten lines each, making in 
all seventy lines, from the whole of which we obtain only the single 
idea — more concisely expressed in the second line of the opening coup- 
let — that Melodia, was " a creature 5o/i{ and tvarm.'"' Her eye was 
surpassingly soft, for — 

" It seemed a beauty set apart, 
For softness and for sighs ;^^ 

but, whether she sighed with it, or only caused others to sigh hy it, we 
cannot well discover. But, be that as it may, her heart, as we are 
assured, was still softer — 

"But oh I Melodia's melting heart, 
Was softer tjian her eyes." 

and her spirit was the softest of the entire trio of melting associates — 
for it " shed" all i\{\.s softness, as a 'producer, while her eyes only spread 
it abroad, as common laborers. 

Again ; " her bosom was a soft retreat'' — and her face, was of a like 
consistence — for " beauty" had '•' left"'' on it, a ''soft trace." This, 
however, is a sort of equivocal intimation, that " beauty" had deserted 
the " soft" being, else it could not have left a trace of any kind. And 
lastly, even her '* darts,^^ were soft, and " tender,'^ and " sweet.^^ Of 
course they could neither pierce, nor wound, but were doubtless so 
harmless, incoUision with any thing as hard as most human hearts, that, 
not to rob them of their delicious sweetness, we may liken them, not 
inaptly, to little javelins of jelly. Nothing is said of the young lady's 
head ; but the presumption is a fair one, that it also was of a piece 
with every thing else possessed by her — soft and spongy. 

After reading, several times, the seventy lines, of which this poem 
consists, and embodying,in our own mind, all the perfections of the melt- 
ing creature portrayed in them, we find but two modes of comparing 
her. The first is the same we should use with any other adjective, (for 
substantive we cannot even fancy her, because a substantive can 



12 POEMS— BY AMELIA. 

*' stand alone," and she, we are confident, could not,) we must there- 
fore compare her like other adjectives, by putting her through the seve- 
ral degrees — soft, softer, softest. 

And, as respects the second mode, in the poverty of our imagination, 
all soft and warm as she was, we can think of nothing which she so 
much resembles, as that homely and somewhat insipid culinary prepa- 
ration, denominated, in one form of parlance, *'iWw5/i." And, if we 
add, in consideration of the sweetness of the entire being of Melodia, a 
seasoning of molasses, the simile will, in our own humble opinion, be 
quite as expressive, complete, and belles-lettres-like, as many of the 
analogous creations by the poetess herself. 

In the last stanza we are told, that the beauty, which it is intimated 

had departed from Melodia's face, is " set" in the " spirif^ of the 

poetess, thfere to — . 

" Live, until this tender heart, 
On which it lives is dead." 

And there, we hope it may have a prolonged, and sweet existence. As 
Melodia is acknowledged to be ** A thing unknown to fame," we con- 
fess, we see very little probability that either the poetess or ourselves, 
will be able to bestow upon her, any very enviable degree of renown ; 
and, in despair of doing so, we take our final leave of her. 

It is not necessary to examine, at full length, or to analyze critically, 
all, or any one entire poem of this class, in order to prove their indispu- 
table title to the place we have assigned to them in the ranks of poesy. 
A verse, or stanza, taken at random, will sufficiently sustain our 
opinion; and, for absolute demonstration of the position, we have as- 
sumed, we refer the reader to the volume itself; merely directing his 
attention to such pieces as *' Musings," ♦' Lines to a lady," '' Stanzas," 
" I weep not," and a number of similar effusions, making up at least 
one half of the book. 
^ In pursuing the plan here proposed, we present our readers with the 
first stanza of " Musings," that they may judge for themselves : 

" I wandered out, one summer night, 

^Twas when my years were few. 
The wind was singing in the light, 

And I was singing too; 
The sunshine lay upon the hill. 

The shadow in the vale, 
And here and there, a leaping rill, 

Was laughing on the gale." 



POEMS— BY AMELIA. 13 

After being informed, (on the authority, we presume, of poetic li- 
cense,) that this was a sun-shiny night, the reader will not be surprised 
to learn that other matters of wonderment were witnessed by the young 
lady, in her wanderings ; such as some '-waves" with " dimpled hands," 
and others with " dimpled faces" — the latter " leaping upon the air," 
and each catching " a star in its embrace," &c., &c., &c. 

We will add another stanza from this poem, as triumphantly empty 
and common-'place, as if it had been intended, by the authoress, to illus- 
trate that particular s'yle of composition: 

" I heard the laughing wind behind, 

A playing with my hair. 
The breezy fingers of the wind. 

How cool and moist they were; 
I heard the night-bird warbling o'er, 

Its soft, enchanting strain, 
I never heard such sounds before, 

And never shall again.** 

This reminds us, not a little, of Peter Pindar's mock apostrophe to 
the lips of the Princess Augusta, of England ; 

♦' Those beauteous lips, unstained by satire's gall, 
Lips that I never kissed — and neve7' shall. 

From '* I weep not," we take the following specimen of *'milk and 
water : 

" Nor do my lips e'er part. 

With whispers of thy name; 
But thou art shrined in this hushed heart, 

And that is all the same.** 

" I have a fair and gentle friend," furnishes us with the scrap of 
balderdash here inserted : 

" For every tear that gems her eye, 

From her young bosom flows, 
Like dew-drops from a golden star, 
^ Ov perfume from a rose.** 

And with this exquisite bit of nonsense, we shall close our extracts of 
the purely common-place. 

We have before remarked that our authoress is constantly tempted 
to sing too much, and in too exalted a strain of herself. And, in further 
confirmation of this fact, we subjoin the following, from her poem ad- 
dressed to her '' Freed Bird." After telling him that her " mild spirit'' 



14 POEMS— BY AMELIA. 

is desirous of " springing^' from its '• temple" to join him, in his hea. 
ven.ward career, she thus sings of herself : 

"And yet, sweet bird, bright thoughts to me are given. 

As many as the clustering leaves in June, 
And my young heart is like a harp of heaven, 

Forever strung unto some pleasant tune. 
And my soul burns with wild, poetic fire; &c., &c. 

And she closes this poem, by telling us, that her — 

— " Free thoughts have ever spurned control, 
Since this heart held a wish, or this frail form a soul." 

In plain English — ever since she was born. And that is probably the 
reason why she now can neither restrain her thoughts within the bounds 
of nature, in describing, nor clothe ihem in words of distinct, and either 
controlling, or controlled signification. 

In one of her poems to *' the Stars," she tells us that, "sweet reli- 
gion'^s holy wing, ''^ has filled her " s,)irit" with " pure, heavenly bliss," 
and proves her assertion, by the following half amatory, half pious 
effusion : 

<« For ne'er since lovers soft raptures o^er me stole, 
When first his young existence dawned in sighs, 

Have I e'er felt such fulness in my soul, 

Such depths of softness at my heart and eyes, 

As I now feel, upon this dewey sod, 

Pondering, with holy aioe, the wond'rous works of God." 

And yet, her holy awe suggests, to her imagination, nothing more 
sublime or heavenly, than the stanza commencing : 

" Ye" (the stars) " bring the time when happy lovers meet,'* &c. 

But we forbear to notice any more of these blissful ponderings. 

On Inflecting how much the poetess lies out at night, on the ^'deivey 
sod,'''' and " wanders" in damp, though Jloicery paths, and " sits amid' 
her " flowers," for "long uncounted hours," looking at the '•' stars," 
and pining for some one she never knew, we are almost tempted to 
believe the lady herself to be a dew-and-star-light-drinking flower — 
and that she is refreshed ly all this dewey-dampness, otherwise— to 
borrow, with a slight alteration, the question of Hotspur : 

" How 'scapes she agues, in Apollo's name?" 



POEMS— BY AMELIA. 15 

As specimens of the transcendentally sentimental, in which our au- 
thoress so peculiarly delights, we recommend to our readers, " The 
Young Lovers," " The broken-hearted," " He came too late," " Oh, 
had we only met," " I know thee not," " Hopele-s love," &c., 6z:c., 
&c. 

The last named poem closes with the following stanza, which may 
be considered a fair specimen of the whole trashy production: 

" Ah me! such blissful hopes once filled my bosom, 

And dreams of fame could then my heart enthrall, 
And joy and bliss around me seemed to blossom, 

Eat these blissful hopes are blighted — all; 
No smiling Angel decks these Eden-bowers, 

No ringing footstep echoes mine in glee; 
Oh I I am weary in this land of Jiou'ers, 

I sigh— -I sigh amid them all — ah mei^^ 

And oh me! also — poor fellow I Sir Walter must have had him in 
his mind, when he wrote of Wilfred : 

" Vainly he loved — for seldom swnin, 
Of such soft mould is loved again." 

The whole tenor of this rhapsody, as well as tha'. of others of a like 
character, recalls so forcibly to our mind, an ancient " love song," that 
we are tempted to present our readers with a verse or two from it, in 
order that they may observe in it, the same pretty epithets and kindred 
thoughts, which our authoress here so felicitously displays. It com. 
mencco thus : 

. «* Fluttering, spread thy purple pinions, 
Gentle Cupid, o'er ray heart, 
I, a slave in thy dominions, 

Nature must give way to art. 
Mild Arcadians, ever blooming;, ' 

Nightly nodding o'er your flocks; 
See my weary days consuming, 

All beneath yon Jlowery rocks. 
Mournful cypress, verdant willow, 

Gilding my Anrelia's brow; 
Morpheus, hovering o'er my pillow, 

Hear me pay my dying vow. 

Gloomy Pluto, king of terrors, 

Arm'd in adamantine chains, 

Lead me to the crystal mirrors, 

Watering soft Elysian plains. 

Thus when Philomela drooping, 

Softly seeks her silent mate, 
See the bird of Juno stooping, 
Melody resigns to faie." 



16 POEMS— BY AMELIA. 

f 

This is entitled ** a love song in the modern taste,'''' and was com. 
posed more than a hundred years ago, by one who pronounc ed it such 
a production, as *' might have been written by a person of quality." 
But we confess, we see no good reason why it might nx)t have been the 
production of our authoress, and, under precisely the same title, have 
made one in her collection of poems; so strikingly similar is it, in 
conception and execution, to many pieces contained in the volume we 
are examining. 

But we shall bring our strictures to a close, soon after the examina- 
tion of one poem more — *' The Rainbow;" which, from its prominent 
position in the volume, as well as from the fact, that it furnishes both 
the frontispiece and its motto, seems to be presented to us, as the 
" choice and master" specimen of the powers of the authoress. And 
admitting it to be so, we shall endeavor to show, that our objections to 
the poems generally, are equally as well-founded, and therefore as de- 
fensible, when urged against even this evidently favorite production. 

But, before commencing our analysis of " The Rainbow," we deem 
it proper, briefly to specify some of the leading elements of 'poetry. 
Without such a specification, we may be liable, in some particulars, to 
be misunderstood. 

Poetry is not, as it is too generally supposed to be, identical with 
mere fancy-work, or fiction. Though, when governed by judgment 
and taste, the imagination and the fancy may be properly and advan- 
tageously employed in it. 

The term has been correctly defined to mean, a faithful delineation 
of nature, (especially in'her most striking and attractive features and 
qualities,) in measured and appropriate language, usually and most 
fitly, but not necessarily in either rhyme, or blank verse. 

Truthfulness, in the representation of all things — objects, events, 
causes, sentiment, feeling, and every other attribute or phenomenon, 
whether of mind or matter, is as essential to poetry, as to any other 
sort of composition. 

Though the poet may imagine and describe objects, actions, and 
scenes, that have never existed, they must be such alone as might have 
existed, without any violation of, or departure from, the laws, or ordi- 
nary course of nature. 

Or, if the creations of the poet, be so placed, or endowed by his 
lancy, that they could not have had an actual existence, they must, 



POEMS— BY AMELIA. 17 

nevertheless, if described in detail, be congruous in all tiieir parts, and 
be made to resemble something that has been, or might be the product 
of a natural course of action, or the result of natural feelings. And 
thus, at last, must he draw from the storehouse of nature, all the 
elements of his imagery and scenery ; and he must never unite them 
in an unnatural manner. 

So essential and vital to genuine poetry are such considerations and 
observances as these, that, in their boldest fictions, the high sons of song 
have never neglected them. This truth, were it necessary, could be 
easily proved, by a reference to what are regarded as the most unbri- 
dled flights of imagination, by Chaucer, Spencer, or Milton, or even 
by Shakespeare himself; when, glancing with his phrenzied eye, "from 
Heaven to earth, and from earth to Heaven,'' he embodied, in his cre- 
ations, whatever met his view. 

By these tests, then, we shall now proceed to try the poetry of the 
much admired " Rainbow;" and if it prove to be little else than a 
glitter of objects, a jingle of words, and an incongruity of representation 
and thought, an analytical examination of the inferior poems of the 
volume would be a waste of time, and will not therefore be attempted 
by us. 

In commencing our analysis, we present our readers with the first 
stanza of that brag-poem of the volume : 

" I sometimes have thoughts in my loneliest hours, 
That lie on my heart like the dew on the flowers. 
Of a ramble I took one bright afternoon, 
When my heart was as light as a blossom in June; 
The green earth was moist with the late fallen showers^ 
The breeze fluttered down and blew open the flowers, 
While a single white cloud, to its haven of rest, 
On the white wing of peace, floated off in the west.^^ 

In this stanza we are told, as the reader perceives, that the poetess is 
thinking of a ramble she " took one bright afternoon, (and be it re* 
membered that the afternoon icas bright,) the ground was wet, as it 
always was, either with rain or dew, whenever she walked out — by 
day or by night. The sun, of course, was in the tvest, " while a single 
white cloud," the only one in the sky, " floated off in the west," also. 
The propriety of its being "floated" there, " on the white wing of 
peace," is not very apparent ; nor do we remember ever before to have 
heard it suggested that clouds have a haven of rest any where, inas- 



18 POEMS— BY AMELIA. 

much as, while ihey exist, ihey are perpetually in motion. ]( ihey 
have, however, such a haven, our authoress is wise in selecting the 
west for it; because that word rhymes well with rest; and that is the 
only reason we can discover for the arrangement. 

But, we would ask, do clouds ever appear luhite in the west, when 
the sua is also in that quarter of the heavens? We are inclined to 
think not — we have often gazed admiringly on the western clouds ex- 
hibiting, towards evening, almost all the gorgeous colors of the rainbow. 
But a ''white cloud," imder such circumstances of time and place, we 
do not at present remember to have witnessed. 

The only defect in the metre, that we notice in this poem, occurs in 
the ihird line of the first stanza; and it is throughout plentifully sprin- 
kl'd with those pretty, glittering word?, in which the poetess so nmch 
delii,'las. 

But we will proceed to the next stanza: 

" As I threw back my tresses to catch the cool breeze, 
That scattered the rain-drops and dimpled the seas. 

Far up the blue sky, a fair rainbow unrolled, 

Its soft-tinted pinions of purple and gold." 

From these lines we learn several singular occurences — that " the 
seas" were •' dimpled" by '* the breeze," which was, notwithstanding, 
but a gentle one. We are not sure, whether the authoress means by 
the " seas," to indicate a plurality o( oceans, or even of less important 
*' seas;" or whether she speaks in seaman's phrase, and alludes to those 
foam-crested billows, which are nautical ly termed *' seas." Most pro- 
bably she means to apply the term to an indefinite portion of the broad 
Atlantic. But in whatever sense she employs the word, it is mani- 
festly absurd to talk of *' the seas," or Atlantic ocean, as being " dim- 
pled" by a ^'fluttering " " fiow^er-opening breeze." 

We are next informed that, aa the poetess " threw back her tresses," 
*' a fair rainbow unrolled" its •* purple and gold pinions " far up the 
blue sky" — an event presenting, certainly, one of the most extraordi- 
nary phenomena on record. A rainbow, that " airy child of vapor 
and the sun," appeared far up the blue vault of heaven — without the 
presence of a single natural cause, from which the splendid meteor 
could possibly arise ! ! For, as the reader will remember, there was 
but one cloud (a lohite one) in the sky, and that was in the ivest, 
where the stm was naturally slnkingto his rest ; for it was in the after- 



POEMS— BY AMELIA. . l9 

noon. And we are given clearly to understand, that there was, at that 
lime, neither lain, cloud, nor vapor, to obscure, or disturb the heavenly 
serenity; for the "afternoon" was ''bright,'" and the ''sky''' was 
" him.''' Yet, in despite of all these adverse circumstances, our au- 
thoress sees — not in that part of the hemisphere, opposite to the de- 
clining sun, where alone a rainbow could have appeared — but "farvp 
the blue sky," immediately over her head, a miraculous rainbow. Nor 
do we give it this title, only because of its existence being independent 
of natural causes. It had attached to it other peculiarities, which ex- 
cite our astonishment. It " unrolled:' a pair of wings — i. e. — " pinions 
of purple and gold." 

Now, were we speaking of an ordinary rainbow, formed in the usual 
manner, we should here object, that, in the unity of its perfect arch, 
^here was nothing which could, with the shadow of propriety, be denom. 
inated wings. But, as this was evidently a creation of the poetess, 
manufactured exclusively for her own use and benefit, we shall not 
presume to say with what strange and pretty appendages she might not 
have decorated it. The manner, moreover, in which these glittering 
attaches were displayed, was no less peculiar. The bow '^'unrolled'* 
them. Now, no other winged creature, as we verily believe, whether 
of nature, or imagination, ever opened its pinions in such an out of the 
way and preposterous manner. 

But we must add still more to the wonders of this celestial pageant, 
by continuing our authoress's description of it: 

" 'Twas born in a moment, yet, quick as its birth. 
It had stretched to the vtte.rimst ends of the earth, 
And fair as an Angel [i floated as free, 
With a icing on the earth, and a wing on the sea." 

Its momentary birth seems scarcely less a matter of surprise, than 
its causeless production, when we consider, that,, in, that single "mo- 
ment," it " unrolled" a pair of wings of such "prodigious" dimen- 
sions, as to reach to the " uttermost ends of eavth ! /'' We have cer- 
tainly seen a rainbow, which, in a very short space, presen^ted its whole 
brilliant arch to our eyes; but it was formed in the natural, manner, by 
the refraction and reflection of the sun's rays, by a cloud,, or falling 
rain. Nor did it extend beyond the easy ken of our corporeal vision. 

Of this rainbow, a further marvel is, that it was not only "fair as 
an Angel," but that it also "flouted as free." And this Is another 



20 POEMS— BY AMELIA. 

palpable blunder. For it Is a manifest absurdity to speak of a rainbow, 
formed by nature, as a "Jloating meteor. It does not even seem to 
float. Its colors indeed, deepen, blend, and fade ; but, during its brief 
period of duration, it spans its parent cloud, on which it appears, as 
immoveable in position, as it is magnificent in form and color; thus 
reminding us, at once, of the steadfastness and glory of that " promise," 
of which it is the fitting and glorious type. 

But had this rainb6w been even the Angel to which it is compared, 
it could not possibly have ''floated free," awkwardly encumbered as it 
was, " with a luing on the earth, and a wing on the sea." And, as it 
reached to ** the uttermost ends of the earth" running in the natural 
direction of north and south ; one " wing" probably rested on " Terra 
del Fuego," and the other on an ice-berg on the " Arctic ocean. Thus 
fearfully tving.bound, we are compelled lo consider the freedom of its 
"floating," to be somewhat more restricted than that of an " Angel." 

As there was no pos3ibility that nature, acting in conformity to her 
unchangeable laws, could have formed the rainbow in question, we are 
forced into the alternative of attributing its creation to some "witchery" 
of the poetess herself; and, as that creation was simultaneous with 
the " throioing hack of her tresses," we leave it to the imaginations of 
our readers, to connect the playful grace of that act, with the produc- 
tion of the miraculous bow, which, at the same instant, arched her fair 
head with so celestial a bandeau. 

But to proceed: 

" How calm was the ocean, how gentle its swell, 
Like a woman's soft bosom it rose and it fell, 
While its light, sparkling waves stealing laughivgbj o'er, 
When theij saw the fair rainbow, kvelt down on the shore; 
No sweet hymn ascended, no murmur of prayer, 
Yet I felt that the spirit of worship was there, 
And bent my young head in devotion and love, 
'Neath the form of the Angel, ihdit floated above.*^ 

Here, we regret to say, that we cannot approve of the simile con- 
tained in the first couplet of this stanza, especially as the product of a 
female pen. And as the ground of our disapprobation must be obvious 
to every one, we forbear making any further comment on the subject. 

The couplet that follows, being somewhat obscure, we are uncertain, 
what it was that the ** light sparkling waves" stole laughingly o'er. 
We suppose, however, that it was " the shore;" for, we are told, that 



POEMS— BY AMELIA. 21 

they knelt down on that queer and homely sort of a cushion, when they 
♦' saw the rainbow." 

Had we not received the scrap of intelligence, of their having pre- 
viously exercised the power of vision, we should have considered their 
kneeling doian, as a feat sufficiently comical for waves to be made to 
perform, even in poetic fiction. But, thus informed, we regard their 
posture as in very good keeping with the whole unnatural and fantasti- 
cal scene. We confess our wonder, however,, that the poetess did not 
find, in the voice of the ocean, something to likea to a hymn or a 
prayer ; as she might have done with sufficient poetical propriety and 
aptness. For the ocean has a voice, which, though ti^mendous in its 
wrath, is, in its calmer mood, often solemn and soft enough, for either 
prayer or praise. 

Without even fancying their aid, however, the authoress felt that 
the *' spirit of worship was there," and, seeing the waves kneeling d$. 
voutly before her, she might have added, with perfect propriety — th& 
form also. 

Thus impressed, she bent her "young head," in devotion and love, 
'neath the form of the Angel, that ''floated above." Here is a new 
wonder, which may account for some of those that had preceded it. 

We have shewn that this rainbow was of preternatural formation ; 
but the whole extent of the miracle, was not at first revealed to us. 
We were told indeed, that it was "fair as an Angel," but we now 
discover, that it was itself an Angel, which it would seem had assumed 
this radiant form, in order to delight, without overawing, the all-appre- 
ciating rambler. This fact being admitted, all incongruities cease, of 
course, to be of any importance ; inasmuch as an Angel is under no 
obligation to consult the natural laws of time, place, or circumstance. 

Before reading this eclaircisement, we had begun to account for the 
bow's appearance mythologically, by fancying that Juno had sent a 
message to the poetess, and that Iris, her hand-maiden and message- 
bearer, had thus sprung from the "dimpled seas," "far up the blue 
sky" — to deliver it, with all due ceremony, in her full Olympian court- 
dress, of " soft tinted purple and gold." 

We will continue our examination of the poem thus — 

<' How wide was the sweep of its beautiful wings, 
How bouvdless its circle, how radiant its rings; 



22 



POEMS— BV AMELIA. 



If I looked on the sky, 'twas suspended in air. 

If I looked on the ocean, the rainbow was there; 

Thus forming a girdle as hrilUant and whole, 

As the thougltts of the rainbow, that circled my soul. 

Like the wing of the Deity, calmly unfurled, 

It beai from the cloud, and encircled the world." 



In this stanza, the poetess reverts once more to the "beautiful vvi^ngs'' 
of tlie bow, sans rain, and tells us, that its circle was boundless. 
Yetev^ry one knows, that the most perfect rainbow, is wholly a local 
object; while a single glance easily embraces the entire arch. And 
so near to us, do the ends of the bow appear to be, that a little child 
may be induced to undertake a journey to one of them, to obtain the 
" pot of gold,'' which is fabulously said to be hidden there. 

But we will not find fault where it is possible to avoid it. We 
therefore admit, that, to the limited perception, and the exaggerated 
imagination of our authoress, it may have appeared " boundless." 

We are ne?t told of the bow, that " 'twas suspended in air ;" and 
this seems hardly compatible with our previous information, that it had 
a " wing on the earth, and a iving on the sea." For, while thus rest- 
ing on the two most ponderable of the elements, it cannot with pro- 
priety be admitted., that it was " suspended in air, which is one of the 
lightest. The bow was also on the ocean, and thus formed " a girdle," 
or ring, both •* brilliant" and ''-whole." But this conflicts again with 
the idea of its being ** boundless ;" for the perfect circle the authoress 
talks about, could not have even appeared to be so. 

Again, the girdle is declared to have been ''ivhole;" yet the "ocean 
rose and fell," was " dimpled by the breeze/' and had "light spark 
ling waves'' on its surface. For these reasons, it was natural for us to 
expect to hear, that the rainbow, reflected from the water, was broken 
into thousands of brilliant fragments ; as, under such circumstances, 
must inevitably have been the case. 

There is however, somewhat of an abatement of the perfection of 
this " girdle." It was onJy " as brilliant and whole" as the " thoughts 
of the rainboiv,"' that *' circled the soul'' of the poetess. And we have 
no difficulty in admitting, that it might easily have been so; for we are 
constrained to declare, that " the thoughts of the rainbow," which our 
authoress has expressed in this poem, are, in every particular, incon- 
gruous, disjointed, and unnatural. How such thoughts, therefore, could, 
by any contrivance or contingency, have "circled'^ her soul, we cannot 



POEiMS-BY AMELIA. 23 

pretend either to explain, to comprehend, or even to conjectare. We 
are most inclined, however, to suspect, that the strange enigma was 
neither more nor less, than one of those "deep and solemn mysteries 
of the soul," to the study of which, the poetess, as we are assured, by 
one of the most enthusiastic admirers of her genius and its effusions, is 
ardently devoted. 

So numerous and glaring are the inconsistencies and self-contradic- 
tions, in this stanza, to which we have already referred, that a feeling 
of kindness and compassion toward th6 poetess, forbids us openly to 
expose any more of them. We hope, therefore, that our readers have, 
of themselves, discovered, that the " Rainbow," at first, " suspended in 
air, far up the blue sky," is here so far remodeled, and metamorphosed, 
in its position and bearing, by its fair creatress, as, to be attached to 
her " ick'ite cloud in the west,''"' from which it very marvellously «* bent, 
and encircled the world ! !" 

Of the simile in the last couplet of the stanza, we shall only observe, 
that a single wing, though (to speak with reverence) even of the Deity, 
cannot, with any propriety of language, much less with truth, be 
spoken of as encircling •' the world'' or any thing else. 

But we will resume our quotations: 

" There are moments, I tldnk, when the spirit receives. 
Whole volumes of thought on its unwritten leaves. 
When the folds of the heart, in a viomerd unclose, 
Like the iniiermost leaves from the heart of the rose. 
And thus, when the rainbow had passed from the sky, 
The thoughts it awoke were too deep to pass by; 
It left inyfvllsoul,\\ke the wing of a dove, 
All JluUtring with pleasure, ixnd fluttering with Zouc" 

In the first line of this stanza, there is a fault, that cannot easily es- 
cape the notice of any reader of judgment and taste. The expression 
•' I think''^ is somewhat too personal, as well as too colloquial. The 
sentiment, in the couplet, in which this homespun phrase occurs, does 
not belong to the poetess alone, but is familiar to thousands ; while her 
egotistical parade of the first person is in very bad taste. 

In the second couplet, we have one of those pretty similies, which, 
want nothing but aptitude, and signijicancy, to render them illustra. 
live. The present one is, for several reasons, as useless as it is un- 
meaning. In no respect is the rose emblematical of the sudden open- 
ing of the human heart. It is not a flower that blooms in a " nio- 



34 POEMS— BY AMELIA. 

ment;'^ nor do any of its leaves, whether '^ innermost,'' middle, or 
outermost, ever, like the cup of the " evening primrose," open instan* 
taneously. When, therefore, " the folds of the heart in a moment xxn- 
close," they are as unlike those " innermost leaves," as they are to a 
mouse-trap, or a pair of spring snuffers, which fly suddenly shut instead 
of oyen. 

We are next told, that " when the rainbow had passed from the sky," 
it awoke thoughts in the poetess " too deep to pass by ;'' and her "souV 
•' full" of those deep, devotional feelings, she compares to *' the wing 
of a dom— all fluttering with pleasure, and fluttering with love" — mak- 
ing thus a perfect climax in absurdity and false taste. 

No soul, deeply impressed with sentiments of " devotion," and pious 
" love,'' and irresistibly impelled to bend either the ''head," or the 
knee, under their all-powerful and solemnizing influence, ever yet expe- 
rienced one sensation, of that sickly sentimentality, which may be aptly 
illustrated by the figure of a pigeon-wing — all fluttering with pleasure 
and love* Indeed^ ihis fluttering of the "wing" of the " bird of Vie- 
nus,"' is illustrative of nothing higher, or purer, than the palpitating 
delight and romantic trepidation, with which a sentimental school-girl 
breaks the perfumed seal of her first rose-colored billet*doux. An 
affectation o( common sentiment issufliciently ridiculous ; but even the 
appearance of an affectation of devotion is positively offensive. To 
continue — 

" I know that each moment of rapture or paiM> 
But shortens the links of life's mystical chain; 
I know that my form, like that bow from the tbave, 
Must pass from the earth, and lie cold in the grave; 
Yet, 01 when death's shadow my bosom encloud, 
When I shrink at the thought of the cofRn and shroud; 
May hope, like the rainbow, my spirit enfold, 
In her beautiful pinions of purple and gold." 

The last stanza (just quoted) opens with an attempt at a philosophl* 
cal reflection, which, though by no means new, is expressed in a some- 
what novel manner. 

Our authoress meditatingly tells us in it, that she knows, " that each 
moment of rapture or pain'' (of herself, of course — and we doubt not, 
of the less transcendental sensations of ordinary mortals also) " but 
shortens the links (i. e. every link) in lifers mystical chain." 

Now, the poetess here designed to state a common-place truism ; but 



POEMS—BY AMELIA. 26 

she has either failed to express her genuine meaning; or her philo- 
sophism has led her into the commission of an awkward blander. 
Each moment i\idii passes does not shorten every link, nor even a sin- 
gle link of the chain of life. It merely takes one link from it, and 
thus shortens the chain itself, leaving all the links, that remain, of 
their natural length. 

This little blunder is followed by another dash of rhetoric equally 
outre. The authoress says that her ** form, like that bow from the 
Avave," " must pass from the earth and lie cold in the grave." Now, 
in this comparison, sentimental and solemn as it is intended to be, we 
can positively perceive neither accuracy, fitness, nor meaning. The 
bow fades quickly from the sky and wave, and is gone^ we know not 
whither. The/or??i of the poetess, however, we do opine, will not 
thus prismatically fade from our admiring eyes, but will, (long here- 
after, as we earnestly hope) be borne to some flower-clad and bird-fre- 
quented spot, and consigned, with sad and solemn ceremonial — ** ashes 
to ashes — dust to dust." And thus, the passage of her ** form from 
the earth,'' can be, in no single particular (the fact of departure itself 
excepted) like that of " the bow from the wave." Nor did the bow, 
as we venture to presume, after vanishing from the wave, " lie cold in 
the grave," or in any other place, as her form will do. And thus is 
the simile, in every particular, as grossly inappropriate, as it \9, pretend- 
ing and inflated. If the lady meant merely to say, that she knew she 
must die and be buried, she told a well-known and momentous truth ; 
but she spoiled the simplicity and solemnity of that truth, by her un- 
successful attempt, to liken her/orm and fate, to the "/orm" and fate 
" of the Angel that floated above." 

In the four concluding lines, the wish and comparison are sufiiciently 
unexceptionable; and, if they were not so, the fault could not be attri- 
buted to the poetess ; for neither of them owes its origin to her. The 
rainbow has been used as the symbol of hope, in all ages, and by nu- 
merous writers, both in prose and verse, ever since it was first repre- 
sented, in the Old Testament, as " the bow of promise,'' and " token 
of the covenant.'' 

We have thus endeavored to give a full and fair analysis of this 
poem ; and, in doing so, we have shewn it, if we mistake not, to be 
destitute of every attribute essential to true poetry. If tried, as a test, 
by the definition of poetry heretofore given (the justice and propriety of 



26 POEMS— BY AMELIA. 

which,' we believe to be incontrovertible) we shall find it strikingly 
deficient, in all the most important characteristics of that form of com- 
position. 

In *' delineations of nature," the authoress, as has been already made 
to appear, is prepo^erously unfaithful — representing the production of 
natural phenomena ( a fault very often repeated in the volume before 
us) without the operation of a single natural cause. And there is an 
equal want of correctness, in her descriptions of the commonest objects, 
to each of which, she, in turn, attributes some appearance, quality, or 
action, as foreign from truthfulness, as the act itself is unlicensed in 
the wildest flight of poetic fancy. And if the objects, attempted to be 
here presented to us, be wholly incongruous, the ideas of the writer, are 
no less unconnected and irreconcilable with each other. There is 
scarcely a single stanza in the poem, the revelations of which do not 
conflict with those of some other, or, even of itself; and, though most 
of the poetess's attempts at simile result in lamentable failures, as far 
as they are designed for an illustration of her meaning ; yet do they 
very aptly illustrate our remark, that she is essentially destitute of all 
just perception of analogy, and therefore unable to institute, with each 
other, comparisons of things, with any degree of aptitude or propriety. 

And we would further observe, that, as all the elements and circum- 
stances of this poem are forced and unnatural, it necessarily follows, 
that the feelings which they might be supposed to have awakened in 
the authoress, should appear to the reader to be, in a like degree, over- 
strained and unreal. 

We were forcibly struck, by a remark, relative to these poems, made 
by a sprightly and intelligent lady, on whom we called, some time 
after their publication. The volume was lying on her table, and, in 
reply to out questions, " whether she was fond of poetry, and what she 
thought of that she had been reading ? She observed, *' that she had 
always been a great lover of poetry, but as she was advanced in years, 
she supposed she had got behind the taste of the age, and that poetry 
was not now, the same thing that it was when she was young — " for," 
she quietly added, " T cannot say I admire these poems ; for indeed, I 
cannot tell what most of them mean.'' In her estimation of "the 
Rainbow," we found that she fully concurred in the opinion of that 
poem, which we had ourselves previously noted down ; and she, with 
a degree of good-natured archness, subjoined—" I never, in my life. 



POEMS— BY AMELIA. 27 

saw a rainbow like that described iiere. Every one 1 have seen, was 
connected with a c/owrf, and not suspended in air, in the clear blue 
sky • and why the good lady sliould have lacked a pair of wings on the 
rainbow, unless it was to make it look like ihe angel, to which she 
whimsically compared it, I am sure 1 cannot tell.'' 

In examining thus critically into the claim, which these poems have, 
to be rightfulUy considered what they have been proclaimed to be— 
-the best ever published by an American authoress^'— we have been 
actuated solely by a sincere desire to aid in the formai'ion of a just and 
impartial estimate of their character. And it has given us, instead o( 
pleasure, feelings of an opposite description, to ascertain the fact, arid 
to feel constrained to declare it, that, so far from having any just u le 
to the from rank, so unwisely assigned to them, they fall far below the 
productions of almost any one of our coumrywomen, who is at all dis- 
tinguished in the walks of poesy. And, although it is with reluctance, 
and even painful emotion, that we call the attemion of our readers to 
the subject, we yet consider it but common justice to the other poetesses 
of America, to assert, that the sterling merit of many of their produc- 
tions cannot, with either taste or becomingness, be consigned to a 
secondary position, in regard to effusions in every respect so far inferior 
to them, as are the " Poems by Amelia."' Nor dan readers, of sound 
judgment, and culcivated taste, be thus blinded by the false and t.nsel 
tlareof these fragments of Moore's " Feast of Roses"-mere scraps 
and shreds of viands, promiscuously gathered, and fulsomely served up 
after the - magic spell," which the -Enchantress" wove, had faded 
from lute, and gem, and flower. 

Another yet more weighty reason for our present disagreeable duty, 
is, that, in encouraging and cultivating a taste for American literature, 
•it is desirable and important, that we should make our standard of ex- 
cellence as lofty and substantial, as the materials for its construction 
are abundant and valuable. No inferiority should be suffered to mar 
and deface the fabric. In erecting it, we should look beyond the 
pretty littlenesses o^ - dew drops," " rills," -roses," and - song-birds," 
and the mere twang of rhyme^as - love and dove," " seas and breeze 
- wings and rin^s^-and require of those who are to minister to the 
advancement of^the taste, and ths improvement of the literature of our 
age and country, something at least of intellectual strength-of ongu 
«al intelli^dbe, and connected thought, and of natural imagery, pre- 



28 POEMS— BY AMELIA. 

sented to us In the language of high- wrought and truthful description. 
An to these requirements, should be added the possession of feeling and 
sentiment — deep, natural, fervent, and moral — clothing themselves in 
words, which, from their intuitive fitness, and Ie^istless force, convince 
us at once of their truth and intensity; and, addressing themselves to 
the understanding, as well as to the heart, excite our admiration for the 
pov/er of the writers, while we sympathise in their emotions. 

Nor is it more advisable for the readers of America to have a high 
standard, and a refined condition of taste, than it is for her poets, and 
other authors, to fix their eyes on the loftiest pinnacle of the Temple 
of Fame, and indefatigably strive for its attainment. Let our writers 
be no longer content with ingloriously seating themselves on the lowest 
of the steps, that lead to the vestibule of that time-honored fabric. Let 
them be no longer tolerant of the occupancy of that unenviable station, 
and of the puerile practice of crowning, each on<5 himself, or his hum- 
ble associate, with evanescent and valueless wreaths of stunted bays — 
or road-side flowers. 

Our poets (for it is of them alone that we are now about to speak) 
should be prevented, by discountenance and discouragement, from imi- 
tating the trite sentimentalisms of the amatory poets of other countries, 
and induced to draw their inspiration and matter of song, from nature, 
as she is revealed to us, in our own. 

America is full of the native objects, and of the spirit of poetry — not 
indeed of the graves of great poets^ those hallowed shrines, where pos- 
terity offers up her tribute of admiration and homage — nor of scenes 
made immortal by their genius and song. But our country abounds in 
such scenes of beauty, sublimity and grandeur, and in such associations 
with the mysterious past, the exciting and ennobling present, and the 
boundless and prophetic future, as might well inspire strains as lofty, 
and, in every respect, as worthy of the admiration of posterity, as those 
of the most cherished bard of the old world. 

Who, possessed of a mind to discriminate, feel, and appreciate what 
is set before it, will deny, that such inspiration is to be found in the 
contemplation of our country's towering mountains, majestic rivers, 
wide- spreading prairies, and limitless lakes — in the loar of her cata- 
racts, and in the soft beauty of her thousand forms of scenery, enchant- 
ingly diversified^by hill and dale, gushing fountain, crystal streamlet, 
and sylvan shade — in the glittering frost-work pf her northern winters, 



POEMS— BY AxMELIA. 2d 

and in the balmy breath of her southern orange-groves, offering, at once, 
the rich treasures of their golden fruit, and the delicious fragrance of 
their fresii-opening flowers — in the dark tornado, spreading death and 
desolation in its path— and in the gorgeous pageantry of clouds that 
decorate her skies, when the orb of day issues in glory from his portals 
in the east, or slowly descends, in solemn splendor, to his repose in 
the west ; and, finally, in the depths of her dense primeval forests, that 
have withstood, for centuries, the assaults of the tempest, and the sap. 
pings of time ? Nor are these the only Helicons and Hippocrenes 
our country contains. 

Besides being rich in mysterious mementoes of a race of the human 
family, long since extinct, that stir the fancy, and invite to romantic 
speculation, far-reaching, bold, and mystical conjecture, and antiqua- 
rian research, America has her present race of Red men, who have 
long made her solitudes their home; and who present, in their wars, 
and loves, their peculiar character, their general history, and their fu- 
ture fate, a boundless store of material, as rich and deep in poetic in- 
terest, for both the heart and the imagination, as any other people ever 
afforded. 

Nor is it alone in the physical beauty and sublimity of their country, 
that our poets may find their sources of inspiration. Her history is replete 
with romantic incident, and deeds of moral grandeur, compared with 
which, the creations of fiction fade into insignificance. Such are thou- 
sands of the acts of noble daring, that would have graced and glorified 
the palmiest days of Greek and Roman gallantry — or even the reign 
of chivalry itself — performed alike by the high-souled Cavalier, the 
stern and resolute Puritan, and their equally dauntless and adventurous 
descendant — the hardy Pioneer of the west. 

The annals, moreover, of every little colony, can furnish instances 
of individual achievement, heroic endurance, and generous self-sacri- 
fice, worthy of being the theme of the poet's most high-wrought and 
enthusiastic strains. 

. Nor are our records wanting in the softer legends, of the deep and 
hallowed love, faithfulness and patriotism of woman ; always sincere, 
unchanging, and devoted — and of the thousand arduous adventures, 
and disinterested sacrifices to which they have given rise. 

We need hardly say, that among the sources of proud Inspiration, 
for our native bards, are the countless noble acts and endurances of 



30 POEMS— BY AMELIA. 

Washington and his band of revolutionary heroes — and also, the deeds 
of unsurpassed valor, of our land and naval forces, in the late war of 
our country's glory — in which the chosen cohorts of Wellington fled 
before American prowess, and in which tlie all-conquering naval flag 
of England, which had haughtily "Braved a thousand years, the battle 
and the breeze" — was compelled to strii^e, to our young country's ban- 
ner, whose new-fledged Eagle had just stretched her wings in her first 
lofty and daring flight from the eyry. 

And certainly there is, in these records of the past, enough of the 
softness of sentiment, as well as of the moral sublime, to incite the 
poets of America, to celebrate them in lays, worthy, at once, of such 
high, romantic, and spirit-stirring themes, and of their own love and 
genius for song. But we must bring to a close this article, already 
protracted far beyond the limits we had assigned to it. 

Although as a just and impartial critic, we have been obliged to 
point out many faults in the "Poems by Amelia," too palpable to be 
passed over, we are nevertheless persuaded, that their authoress, by ex- 
ercising her judgment more, and her yet undisciplined fancy less, can 
produce a poem superior to any, or even to all in the volume before us. 
But, in order to do this, she must forget herself^ as well as hex favor - 
tte phrases, d.nd pretty words, and thoroughly imbue her mind with her 
subject ; trusting to truth and consistency alone, for the sympathies and 
admiration of her readers. Thus let her give expression to her natural 
feelings, in language forcible and equally natural , and therefore, more 
pleasing and poetical, than any thing can be, that savors of either ex- 
travagance or affectation. 

We have formed this opinion of her capabilities, from those of her 
poems, in which she has apparently made no effort to shine. In her 
*' Green mossy bank," the sentiments, though simple, are natural ; and 
the imagery is such as may have existed ; while we sympathize equally 
with the sports of the child, and the retrospective longing of the loo- 
man, for a return to its careless innocence. 

We wish, by the bye, that her engraver had represented the poetess 
as a pretty, curly-haired, rosy-cheeked child, " Flinging up the cool 
drops," from the fountain described in that poem — " Till (her) small 
naked feet, were all bathed in bright dew." Such a conception would 
have been in far better taste, than the spiritless, and unmeaning crea- 
tion of fancy, which he has given as a frontispiece. In the representa- 



POEMS— BY AMELIA. 31 

tion here suggested, every one would have admired the playful little girl, 
recognized the naturalness of her pastime, and commended the apt con- 
ception of the artist. 

There are lines again, to " The little step-son,*' which, making 
no pretension to a high order of poetry, are pretty, and have some, 
merit, on account of the kind and natural feeling they express. 

*' Thou canst not forget me," is, perhaps, as a whole, one of the 
very best productions in the volume. The thought is continuous and 
connected, and generally natural, and not badly expressed. 

In the first stanza " To Time," there is strength and loftiness of 
both thought and expression ; and, had the authoress sustained herself 
throughout the effort, as she commenced it, that poem must have ranked 
as her best production. But, as soon as she began to talk of " love- 
thrills," her strength and sublimity left her, and the poem ends in her 
oft-repeated figures of ''ripples" and ''dimples." 

*' Pulpit Eloquence," though in some pans too closely imitative, 
and in others, exhibiting somewhat too much of the poetess's penchant 
for the love-lorn, is, perhaps, one of the most unexceptionable of her 
poems. 

We would also place among her respectable poems, the lines to 
" The American Sword." Yet it must be conceded, that the degree 
of favorable estimation, with which we are inclined to view that produc- 
tion, arises rather from the cherished associations which it calls up, and 
the feeling of patriotism expressed in it, than from any uncommon 
merit in the poem itself. It may therefore be sufficient to say of it 
(and it may be truly said) that the subject consecrates the poem, rather 
than that the poem elevates the subject, or even approaches its intrinsic 
glory. 

There are likewise a few other whole pieces, and a number of sin- 
gle stanzas, which, though all more or less tinctured with the faults of 
the poetess's prevailing taste, show, nevertheless, with sufficient clear- 
ness, that she has tact and talent in versification, and no ordinary per- 
ception and appreciation of a certain sort of the beautiful in nature. 

We think, moreover, that we perceive in her poems occasional evi- 
dence of true feeling, which might be turned by her to good account, 
provided she could be induced to regard it in a proper and natural light, 
and to direct it to its natural objects. 

There is also some taste displayed in the arrangement of her pretty 



32 POEMS— BY AMELIA. 

trijles, which, if employed for the embellishment of higher objects, 
might add not a little to their elegance and grace, without impairing 
their truthfulness and dignity. 

Thus respectably, though not highly endowed, were she assiduously 
to cultivate, instead of merely indulging and gratifying her poetica'- 
taste, we repeat our conceptioit, that she may present u--, on some fu- 
ture occasion, with a single ode, that will do more credit to herself, as 
well as to the literature of her country, than all the past productions 
of her pen. 

A solitary production — "The burial of Sir John Moore" — stamped 
its author yoet to all posterity. And who would not rather be the au- 
thor of Mrs. Hemarrs " England's Dead," or her *' Pilgrim Fathers," 
than of every honey-smeared page, with which even she has so often 
cloyed her greatest admirers. ? 

All these things being considered, then, we earnestly hope to be pri- 
vileged, at no veiy distant day, to hail some such distinguished effusion 
of genius, from the pen of our fair countrywoman. And when she 
shall feel, as feel she then must, the transcendent superiority of such 
a performance, and the honor and gratification derived from it, she 
will freely forgive u.s the apparent severity of our present unwilling 
and well-intended strictures. And, we tender to her an assurance, that 
we shall be among the first, and most sincere of her readers, in offering 
to her the tribute of well earned applause. We shall moreover be 
most proud and happy, both as a woman and an American, to see her 
crowned with a chaplet of the brightest bays, that grace our native 
forests. 

In conclusion of this paper, we shall briefly remark, that, had the 
volume of Poems by Amelia been heralded, by certain partial and in- 
judicious critics, or rather eulogists and flatterers, with more discretion . 
and modesty, and less extravagant praise ; had not the most elevated and 
enviable rank among the poetesses of our country been groundlessiy 
claimed for its authoress — had not the productions contained in it been 
so repeatedly proclaimed so surpassingly "beautiful," ''delicious,'' and 
"exquisite," as apparently to constitute an attempt to palm them on the 
judgment and taste of the readers of America, as all that is refined, and 
delectable in poetry — had not such boundless commendation been thus 
wantonly bestowed on it, we should not have dreamed of noticing it 
with either praise or censure. 



POEMS— BY AMELIA. 33 

So far indeed beyond all reason, as well as all correctness of taste, 
have these school- boy paeans been carried, in many instances, as to 
compel us to suspect that their enthusiastic chanters have never even 
seen^ much less attentively read and deliberately examined, the collec- 
tion of poems, which they have so seriously injured by tlieir measure- 
less encomiums. In truth, such wild and unqualified panegyric bears 
much stronger resemblance to ironical mockery than sound criticism 
and honest commendation. 

Be this suspicion, however, right or wrong, we cannot be mistake n 
in saying, that, by the lofty pretensions put forth in favor of the volume 
we have been examining, our disappointment, as to the actual merit of 
its contents, has been commensurate with the high expectations excited 
in its behalf. No less, therefore, by a sense of truth and justice, than 
by pride of place and country, we are constrained to enter our earnest 
protest against what we regard as a libel on the judgment and taste of 
the readers and patrons of polite literature, more especially in the loest — 
but virtually also throughout the country in general, by the crude and 
ill-bestowed eulogies, to which we have alluded. 

Before taking leave of our subject, we deem it appropriate to our 
purpose to observe, that, since the foregoing notice of the *'Poems by 
Amelia^' was written, we have seen, for the first t ime, a volume of po- 
etry — ''By two sisters of the West^ Of these poems we unhesitatingly 
say, that, though much less pretending, and somewhat less smooth 
and sweet in versification, than the productions of the Louisville poetess, 
yet are they, in most of the more vital and important characteristics 
of poetry, of a far higher order. Most of the latter poems have, in their 
kind, more or less of merit; and some of them possess, in no ordinary 
degree, strength, and consistency of thought — force, clearness, and pro- 
priety of expression, natural and beautiful imagery, strong and correct 
feeling, deep moral sentiment, and some obvious purpose held constant- 
ly in view. Of these poems the subjects generally are characterized 
by much more of interest, than those of most of the Poems by Amelia, 
in almost all of which she is herself, in some way, brought out in highest 
relief, and therefore made the principal object of attention. And not 
only are the subjects written on by the ''Sisters'' more judiciously se- 
lected; they are treated with far more vigor and skill. 

Had we not already very deeply trespassed on the usual limits of 
an article like the present, and likewise, we fear, on the patience of 



34 POEMS— BY AMELIA. 

our readers, we should be tempted to invite their attention to a,parallel 
between some of the poems, selected from the two volumes, of which 
we have spoken. But this, at present, cannot be done ; and whether 
the task may be attempted on any future occasion, is an event depend- 
ent on circumstances and time. 

Without pledging ourselves, however, either that we will or will not re- 
sume the subject hereafter, we bid adieu to it, for the present, by express- 
ing our conviction, that, as rn-^gards the fame of the poetess, the publi- 
cation of her 'poems, in a volume, is an ill-advised and unfortunate act. 
Had she continued, as she began, to make occasional contributions to 
the " poet's corner" of newspapers, or common periodicals, her repu- 
tation, as a mere writer of pretty verses, might have passed unscathed^ 
through the faint ordeal of the undisciplined " million'' to which it 
would have been subjected. The reason of this is plain. Her seem- 
ingly unpretending productions would have appeared at disconnected 
periods of time, so remote from each other, that a reciprocal compari- 
son of them could not have been made, without more system and pains- 
taking, than most newspaper readers are prepared to encounter. Hence 
the striking sameness of the elements composing the poems would 
have been detected by comparatively few persons. And they would 
hardly have felt, in the detection, a degree of interest, sufficient to in- 
duce them to take the trouble of making it publicly known. 

But this could be no longer the case, when those poems were col- 
lected into a gaudy, but attractive volume, and placed in such prox- ' 
imity to each other, that one of them could be remembered, while the 
next one was immediately before the reader's eye, and, under these cir- 
cumstances, the entire collection perused and compared. In this new 
and ostentatious condition, which emphatically bespoke, in our author, 
ess, a disposition to assert, whether rightfully or not, her claim to a 
high rank in poesy, the productions, ardently panegyrized as they were, 
by certain indiscreet editors, more liberal in their praise, than critical 
and sound in their judgment, were consequently read with more attention 
and scrutiny, than they had previously undergone. 

While this arrangement set forth, in a manner abundantly confident, 
the ambitious pretensions of the poems, it also enabled even the care- 
less reader to form a correct judgment of their merits ; and, for obvious 
reasons, that judgment has been generally unfavorable to them. 

From the examination thus bestowed on them, it could not far! to 



POEMS— BY AMELIA. 35 

appear, as heretofore stated, that they consist chiefly, of a tiresome re- 
iteration of a few glittering objects, and jingling words, scraps of 
affected and sickly sentimentalism, extravagant pretensions to super- 
excellence and refinement, grotesquely unnatural descriptions and cre- 
ations of fancy, excessive exaggerations of feeling and affection, and 
an all-pervading spirit of self-exaltation. 

Faults so numerous and glaring as these, which are more or less in- 
ter woven with every poem in the book, must have soon convinced all 
readers of discernment and taste, of the important fact, that the poetic 
powers of our authoress, in whatever degree she may be endowed with 
them by nature, have not been trained and strengthened by that tho- 
rough cultivation, which alone can render their exercise, either in any 
degree useful to others, or eminently and lastingly creditable to herself. 
A thought or two more, and we are done. 

Censure and condemnation, in criticism, as in every thing else, 
should be awarded only for beneficent purposes — to be useful alike to 
writers and readers — to encourage and promote what is right, no less 
than to discountenance, correct, and extinguish what is wrong. And 
to these purposes exclusively have we adhered in this article. In no 
instance has our object been to wound, but to heal — to injure feeling, 
but to inform the judgment and improve the taste. We have exercised 
severity with no wantoness, but with deliberation and all the discretion 
we could command. Should our authoress, therefore, deem us, not- 
\ withstanding these truths, unnecessarily harsh in any of our stric 

tures, we most sincerely assure her, in the words of Prince Hamlet, in 
relation to his " aunt-mother," that, toward her, we have been " cruel 
only to be kind.'' 



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